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Sophomore Clayton Duchatscheck out of Wasington, MO is transferring from Division II Lindenwood University located in St. Charles outside of St. Louis. While XC tiimes are difficult to compare because of the significant differences from course-to-course Clayton did have a best time of 25:42 in an 8k XC race at Lindenwood. In the AAC Championship that time would have been good enough for a 9th place finish although again it is hard to know how much impact the courses had on the times. The Shockers best time in the AAC was a 26:15 by Gage Garcia. His best time in the 3,000m steeplechase last year was 9:23.90 which would have bee good enough for 10th place in the AAC Championship last year right behind Shocker Cory Landon who will also be a sophomore this coming year. The top 8 finishers in that race included 3 seniors and 5 juniors.

While Clayton Dutchatscheck looks like he is ready to step into the mix the other 4 incoming freshman, Jed Helker, Jason Landon (younger brother of the aforementioned Cory Landon), Jack Lowry and Bryce Merriman probalby will need a year or two of seasoning before they are ready to step into the limelight. A couple of these guys may prove to be better at the middle distances than at the longer distances.

Looks to me like the Shockers will be a relatively deep team this next season with 10 to 11 guys being competitve. Listed in 8k PR order those guys are:

Shocks finished 5th in the AAC last year. I think they have a good shot at 4rh this year and perhaps an outside shot at 3rd.. Last year's champion Tulsa lost 3 seniors who finsished 3rd, 9th and 12th for a total of ony 24 points (low score wins) and will probably find it tough to replace those performances. I see Temple and UConn as the teams to beat.

The AAC XC Championships will be hosted by Tulane on October 25th in New Orleans.

Dowdy Elazarig's marks are anything but dowdy. He looks like he might be able to join Jared Belardo and Rayvon Allen to form a formidable jumps group. His high school PR's of 24-3 in the long jump and 48-5 in the triple jump would have been good for 7th in both events at last season's AAC Outdoor Championship although most of the competitiors in those events will be returning this year. Dowdy's times in the 100 at 10.72 and the 200 at 21.98 aren't too shabby either.

Joe Helker's high school mile PR of 4:13 converts to about a 3:55 time in the 1500m run which would have been a top 15 time in the AAC last year.

Bishop Carroll's Joseph Hothusen's high school PR of 14.23 in the 110m hurdles seems pretty good but he will have to transition to 42" hurldes from the 39" high school hurdles. But 14.23 would have been a top 5 time in the AAC. We'll have to see how he adjusts to the talller hurdles. Kieron Hunter out of the Dallas area has an even better PR in the 110m hurdles at 14.20. Is Coach Rainbolt looking at a Lawson Montgomery-Todd McKown redux in a few years?

Coach Hertzendorf picks up another solid spearchucker to perhaps replace the departing Damien Odle in the Shockers deep and talented javelin group in Cauy Lindsay out of Goddard Eisenhower. Cauy's high school best of 184-6 compares favorably to Taran Taylor's high school best of 186-4 and Taran rocked it as a freshman for the Shockers last year.

Slayde Little out of 3A Purcell, Oklahoma had a high school PR of 16-0 in the pole vault. That would have been a top 10 jump in the AAC last year. Not to be outdone Tate McDonald out of Norman also had a 16-0 PR in the pole vault in high school. Another duo with great potential.

R-Sr. Transfer Cory Martens our of Newton by way of D-II Chadron State will give fellow senior Isaiah Evans some support in the throws. Cory's PR in the indoor weight throw is just behind Isaiah's best and would have been 5th best in the AAC last year. Cory's PR's in the shot put, disucss and hammer throw are all better than Isaiah's bests and would would have all been top 5 marks in the AAC last year. Hopefully, these 2 guys will push each other lto have a great finish to their college careers.

It's always difficult to predict how a track athlete's development will progress through college but I can see why Coach Rainbolt likes this class.

Comment

Makes you realize what a stud Jim Ryun was. He ran 3:59.0 as a 17 year old 54 years ago alongside grown men and the best America had to offer (Dyrol Buirleson, Tom O'Hara, Jim Grelle, Cary Weisiger, Archie San Romani, Morgan Groth) at the Compton Relays. Despite being knocked off balance and onto the infield midway through lap 2 he managed to recover but still finished 8th with only the rabbit who jogged through the last half the race finsihing behind him. But then the announcement was made that all 8 runners (the first time that had ever happend) had broken 4 minutes with only 1.6 seconds separating 1st through 8th. Young Mr. Ryun had quietly showed that he had arrived.

A year later, in May 1965, at the Kansas State High School Championships, with his only challeger being the clock, Jim ran the fastest high school only mile clocking in at 3:58.3. This was at Wichita State's Veteran's Stadium. I think that still may be the record in a high school only meet.

Later that summer when he was still 18 and considered a high schooler he took on Tokyo Olympic 1500m Champion Peter Snell, Josef Odlozil, the Czech runner who finished 2nd to Snell in Tokyo, and top American Jim Grelle at the AAU Championships and pulled off a huge upset out-kicking Snell and Gelle to win in 3:55.3 and set a high school record that stood for 36 years before Alan Webb broke it.

All this just because he thought a letter jacket would help with the girls and he wasn't very good at anything else.

Here's a good Runner's World article that talks about Jim's career written on around the 50th anniversary of JIm breaking the 4-minute barrier.

Here is a video of Jim's high school only record set in May 1965 (no audio so you can do your own commentary and notice the stadium lighting standards located on the inside of the track) :

Here is the video of his fantastic win over Peter Snell and Jim Grelle in 1965:

34 year old Joe Moore, a fomrer K-State standout, obviously runnning unattached won the JK Gold Classic's men's 6k race this morning at Four Mile Creek Resort in Augusta with a time of 18:15.6 finishing 40 seconds ahead of his closest pursuers Shocker junior Zack Penrod (18:55.5) and Shocker sophomore trnasfer Clayton Duchatscheck (18:59.7) who were the only 3 runners under 19 minutes. Shocker Nathan Wickoren, who I beleive has used up all his eligibility was 4th running unattached in a time of 19:02.36.

Despite Zack and Clayton finishing in the top 2 scoring positions K-Sate on the strength of a 3,4,5,6,7 finish among eligible runners edged the Shockers 25-30 in the team standings.

Speaking of pigs the Shocker XC teams head to Fayetteville, Arkansas for the 30th Annual Chile Pepper Festival which will feature approximately 6,500 athletes from nearly 120 high schools and 80 colleges. Who says cross country can't provide an economic boost.

The Shockers return to Fayetteville after not competing at the Chile Pepper Invitational last season. In 2016, the men's team finished second, led by former Shocker Ugis Jocis in 16th overall.

Top-ranked Arkansas enters the competition as the team to beat. The Razorback men and women rank No. 1 in the south central region, as well as top-15 national rankings.

The men's team finished fifth with 174 points, including three Shockers finishing in the top-35. Captain Zack Penrod led the group finishing 20th with a time of 25:03.6, followed by sophomores Clayton Duchatschek in 33rd (25:28.1) and Ben Flowers in 35th with a personal best time of 25:31.3. Other point scorers for the Shockers include redshirt senior Pedro Montoya in 58th (25:54.7) and Alex Moen in 59th (25:55.0).

"I'm excited for Zack," said Hunter. "He struggled a bit this past week in training, but he raced aggressively today and that's what a champion does. A 20th place finish is a really great showing."

No. 14 Arkansas finished three in the top-5 to take the team title with 38 points. Frankline Tonui, an unattached athlete, won the race with a time of 24:05.4.

Comment

Wichita State cross country gets its first big road testof the season when it competes in Pre-National Invitational in Madison, Wis., on Saturday. Nine ranked teams are in the men's field, led by No. 2 BYU and No. 4 Portland.

"This meet is always a meet that gives us a very true indication of who we really are," coach Kirk Hunter said. "You can feel good about your season because of the way you, maybe, performed in some smaller meets. Until you really line up against the best, you don't know. This is our first opportunity to show if we really are as a good as we think we are."

Wichita State's men's team is a balanced group that must run as a pack to move up the team standings.

Comment

The Shocks finished 30th out of 34 teams in the White Race at the Pre-Nationals in Madison, Wisconsin. Hard to compare XC times because courses and conditions can vary so much form race to race In XC but only Soph. Clayton Duchatscheck improved on his 8K XC best and he did that 15 seconds. However, all the other Shocks in the best 8K times.

The goShockers.com recap shows Ethan Kossover time in the Gray Race at 25:15.6 but according to the results page it was actually 26:15.6.

Not sure this bodes well for the Shocker men heading into the AAC Championships on Thursday, October 25th in New Orleans but you never know for sure what the team's goals were and what they were focusing on in this ace.

It’s championship week for the cross country team as they will travel to New Orleans, Louisiana, for the American Conference Championships on Thursday. The meet looks pretty wide open on both the men’s and women’s sides. WSU will be looking to improve upon last year’s 5th (men) and 6th (women) places finishes.

Coach Hunter has been trying to do his best to figure out how the meet stacks up and any way it’s analyzed it appears to be a battle.

For the men, on paper, Tulsa, Temple and Connecticut look like the top teams but Wichita State, East Carolina, Cincinnati, Memphis and Tulane aren’t far behind.

Trying to compare different cross country courses throughout the Fall is pretty much impossible so it will all depend on how the teams run Thursday. It will definitely be an exciting championship!